Many control lever arrangements on earthmoving vehicles, such as loaders, are provided with detents to hold the control lever in an operating position so that the operator can remove his hand from the control lever. Heretofore each size of a family of similar vehicles had its own control lever arrangement which was designed specifically for the amount of movement of a particular size hydraulic valve. Thus, the detents were also designed for a preselected amount of movement of the control lever and were not provided with any type of adjusting means. Recently in an attempt to reduce cost, the trend has been to utilize one control lever arrangement design for several different sizes of vehicles. However, one of the problems encountered has been that the total amount of valve spool movement of the hydraulic valves varies from one size to the next thereby necessitating the need for a detent apparatus which can be adjusted in accordance with the amount of lever movement.
The present invention is directed to overcoming one or more of the problems as set forth above.
According to the present invention, there is provided an adjustable detent apparatus for a control lever pivotally fastened to a support assembly, said lever having an end portion movable along an arcuate pathway between a plurality of operating positions. A roller is rotatably fastened to the end portion of the lever and is movable therewith along the arcuate pathway. A detent member is pivotally connected to the support assembly and has a normal position adjacent and lying along the arcuate pathway of the roller. A resilient means is connected to the detent member for resiliently biasing the detent member to the normal position. A means is provided for adjustably fastening a first detent cam to the detent member at one of a plurality of positions in the arcuate pathway of the roller so that the detent cam can be selectively positioned to retain the lever in a first operating position after the roller has depressed and passed by the cam.